Garment hangers have been around for hundreds of years. Modern day retail use garment hangers have many packaging and travel requirements and specifications intended to increase efficiency in the supplier to retailer pipeline by minimizing order to sales floor or e commerce shipment time. Many garments are manufactured all over the world and then shipped to United States (or other countries) prehung as a “garment on hanger” from the originating garment manufacturing location. In order to save time and expense at the retail level the garment is placed on the hanger at the point of garment manufacturing and placed into a shipping box or container. Upon delivery to the retailer location, the retailer has to remove the garment on hanger from the box or container and hang appropriately in distribution center for e commerce shipment or further shipment to an individual store.
Present day Omni Channel process dictates whether the garment will go directly to a sales floor or be shipped in ecommerce packaging. Since the retailer or the garment manufacturer does not always know which apparel will go to the greater need, either brick and mortar store or ecommerce, the need for a garment hanger that can be used in both channels without being changed is required.
This invention relates to the need for an individual hanger to be able to be used both at retail level and ecommerce shipments due to the nature of the folding hook.
Today's dimensional packaging shipping costs have made for the appreciation of smaller shipping boxes saving cost based on the dimension of the box.
A prior art patent to Ho, U.S. Pat. No. 8,113,393, describes a collapsible hook hanger in which hook 18 has its end 32 threaded into aperture 34. The drum rotates in opening 30 to allow the hook to be moved between vertical and horizontal positions.
The hanger of Ho is generally plastic, and the movement of hook 18 between vertical and horizontal positions is achieved through removing ribs 38a, b, c and d from detents 36.
As described in the Ho patent, it is necessary to physically pull the hook 18 and the drum out from connection between ribs 38 and the detents 36. This is described in column 3, lines 19-26. The direction of separating the ribs from the detents is perpendicular to the plane of movement of hook 18. This makes separation difficult without using serious force.
Applying pressure between the ribs and detents in a plastic hanger presents certain structural issues especially since such hangers can be easily broken or fractured.
An object of this invention is to provide a hanger with a hook movable between vertical and horizontal positions which is sturdy, susceptible of longstanding and continued use.
Another object of this invention is to provide such a hanger with a movable hook in which the hanger body is made of plastic, is susceptible of multiple uses and reuses of the movable hook without fracturing the plastic of the hanger body.
Yet another object of this invention is to provide a hanger with a movable hook in which the movement between relative positions is easy to obtain, structurally strong and capable of widespread use.
Another object of this invention is to provide a sizer tab which fits into the hanger body such that the sizer tab is not susceptible of easy removal.
Other objects, advantages and features of this invention will become more apparent from the following description.